At 03:05 PM 6/10/1999 -0700, Kelly Ford wrote:
>Even with proper encoding, there are vast parts of the web that I don't
>have a chance of understanding. Recently I helped a college with some
>accessibility issues related to the posting of various PhD theses. There
>were more than a few of the documents that were of limited understanding to
>me because I lack the knowledge and experience to understand the field of
>discussion. How do you address this issue when exploring the needs of
>people with cognitive disabilities?
A post or two back I think I answered your question. Jonathan may differ
because he works with the lower-level populations than I have. I said then
my main concern was for information sites, news and especially government
sites with information that was useful to such folks, should be accessible.
I would include any sites that provide useful local information, such as
bus, train, airline, or TV schedules. Whether the sites that collect PHD
dissertations are accessible is not my concern because they do not usually
include information of interest to the population in question. I have also
said that the FIRST PAGE, or homepage of the site is most critical, so the
user can determine if there is anything of interest or to move on.
Let me add one point, tho, that I don't think I've made before. The
guidelines that David Poehlman created, that would make the web more
accessible to the cognitively impaired, would also make the web more
accessible to students in the K-12 category whose cognition isn't developed
yet. When I developed the Five Forks site (mentioned in my last post to
Kynn) I had in mind high schoolers using the site, but the most recent SOLs
in Virginia now include studies of the Civil War in the 3rd and 4th grades,
and my site probably isn't as useful to the new younger students as it
should be. It's something I need to address when I do the next update of
the site.
Anne
Anne L. Pemberton
http://www.pen.k12.va.us/Pav/Academy1http://www.erols.com/stevepem/apembertapembert@crosslink.net
Enabling Support Foundation
http://www.enabling.org